has been instrumental in
degrading this great nation in various ways, and it is impossible to be
free from it without co-operation amongst ourselves which is in turn
impossible without a national medium of expression.

But I am not here to day to plead for the medium. I am to plead for the
acceptance by the country of the programme of non-violent, progressive
non-co-operation. Now all the words that I have used here are absolutely
necessary and the two adjectives 'progressive' and 'non-violent' are
integral part of a whole. With me non-violence is part of my religion, a
matter of creed. But with the great number of Mussalmans non-violence is
a policy, with thousand, if not millions of Hindus, it is equally a
matter of policy. But whether it is a creed or a policy, it is utterly
impossible for you to finish the programme for the enfranchisement of
the millions of India, without recognising the necessity and the value
of non-violence. Violence may for a moment avail to secure a certain
measure of success but it could not in the long run achieve any
appreciable result. On the other hand all violence would prove
destructive to the honour and self-respect of the nation. The blue books
issued by the Government of India show that inasmuch as we have used
violence, military expenditure has gone up, not proportionately but in
geometrical progression. The bonds of our slavery have been forged all
the stronger for our having offered violence. And the whole history of
British rule in India is a demonstration of the fact that we have never
been able to offer successful violence. Whilst therefore I say that
rather than have the yoke of a Government that has so emasculated us, I
would welcome violence. I would urge with all the emphasis that I can
command that India will never be able to regain her own by methods
of violence.

Lord Ronaldshay who has done me the honour of reading my booklet on Home
Rule has warned my countrymen against engaging themselves in a struggle
for a Swaraj such as is described in that booklet. Now though I do not
want to withdraw a single word of it, I would say to you on this
occasion that I do not ask India to follow out to-day the methods
prescribed in my booklet. If they could do that they would have Home
Rule not in a year but in a day, and India by realising that ideal wants
to acquire an ascendancy over the rest of the world. But it must remain
a day dream more or less for the time being. What I am do